“…That’s all. I did kill her with my own hands—the ‘saintess,’ clean as frost on steel.”

“Isn’t that great, like dust finally swept off a shrine?”

“Maybe my dull-witted master doesn’t think so, but the ripples under the curtain say she wasn’t the only one who meddled.”

“You mean someone helped her? Even a report-dodger like me can see that, like footprints in fresh snow.”

“…”

“Think about it. Without a few guards, a vase-princess with the fighting power of half a goose would’ve died halfway, snapped up by the first monster like a stray feather.”

“What about the leftovers, then? Do we need to scrub them out clean, like soot from a chimney? If your answer’s yes, send Dulan or Victor. In a flash of temper, I promised the ‘saintess’ in my own name I’d spare them. It was impulse, but keeping my oath comes before a storm that hasn’t broken.”

“…No need. If we kill everyone hostile to us, the world turns into an empty street after rain. We’ve got a lot of enemies, like thorns in a hedge. That’s why we draft plans and file them before every move. If someone jams our plan again, we stop them again, like stepping on a snake’s head.”

“Since releasing the Aversion Overlord needs someone to carry the weight, mostly you and Berenz, I don’t know the placements behind that curtain. Do you need me to step in and stand watch like a lantern at the gate?”

“Strictly speaking, no. Every tweak I had Berenz make helps humanity—except releasing the Aversion Overlord, which is a thorn by design. So if anyone wants to block me, they’ll pull on that thread. But…”

The one guarding Sylvia, the Aversion Overlord—Lady Light Jade—has been spoiled useless, like a house cat fattened on cream.

Literal sense. She loves to eat, to be praised, to chat, to be recognized—if all that drops into your lap like ripe fruit with no effort, who’d choose hard, thankless plowing?

For almost a year, Lady Light Jade has lived like that. Every wish but “see this world” was granted by the Savior Demon King Army, like servants carrying lanterns before her.

Which means she’s down to one wish—“I want to go outside,” like a caged bird eyeing the sky.

Even if humans notice the seal on the Aversion Overlord warping, they can’t reseal a heart that’s already leaning toward the door, like a tide leaning toward the moon.

Desire rises from nowhere like mist. Logic can talk it down like rain on dust, but it never crushes it flat.

Today’s report ended. After Vega bowed out like a shadow drawing a curtain, I started on the lamb chops set before me like small red moons.

Rare, still iron-scented, the lamb soothed my tongue a little, like embers warming a cold palm.

Breakfast also held six steaks, lined up like dark bricks.

“Next, we go, release, Aversion Overlord?” Gloria sat beside me, cheek in one hand, slumped on the table like a willow in still water. Since she didn’t ask Vega for food off-hours, her mood wasn’t great, like a sky bruising before dawn.

“I think this isn’t correct,” she said, words falling like pebbles.

“For humans it’s pure loss, so from the human shore it’s not correct, as plain as smoke over a fire. I won’t deny that. But it’s a compromise. I sealed a pact with a Divine Being, and I paid with ‘only 46,620,609 dead, and humans get the right to choose their own fate,’ like buying a bridge with blood, to get what I want.”

“But Andor said, good ending,” she said, like a string plucked out of tune.

“Yeah. True. But for that ‘good ending,’ how far does your clock run, like a river counted in miles or drops?”

“I don’t know,” she said, eyes like clouded glass.

“Great Heroes care about how many die in the disaster, like counting bodies in a field. I look at the value the disaster brings, like ore smelted from fire. The Divine Beings care about the next hundred or thousand years—how many more times this will happen, like storms in a season. My plan to ‘release the Aversion Overlord’ already has that Divine Being’s nod, like a seal pressed in wax.”

“Mm… huh?” Gloria tapped her head lightly, tilted it, gray eyes dim like ash.

Okay. She still doesn’t get it, like a bird staring at glass.

“Simpler, then. The good ending I told you—”

“Endless City. And the Era of Cold Verdure,” she said, like beads on a string.

“Correct. Gods and demons step away from the mortal world. The great don’t sink into the earth like the Bronze Age, but hang high like stars, apart from us.” I slathered black pepper sauce by the jar over the lamb, like paint on stone, and told her, “But to get there, I must convince the Divine Beings that ‘humans don’t need your protection,’ and that’s more than calling a council to re-sign the ‘Primal Accord,’ like a stamp on old paper.”

I need every god and demon to accept the pact to leave the world—yes, every one, like counting every grain in a bowl. Unlike the peace conference, if even one Divine Being or Demon King refuses, I can’t wall the mortal world off from the Demon Realm and the godlands, like a dam with a single crack.

I can use force to break the Demon Kings, like hammers on iron. I can leave that to my father, Saster, the oldest brutal Demon King with a fist like a falling star.

But Divine Beings are stiff-minded, proud and stubborn, the common illness of the great, like oaks that won’t bend. Even if Head promises He’ll persuade them as far as He can, I still need a voice among mortals, to line up a column of people and tell the Divine Beings they must leave—two blades in one hand, like shears.

Among them, “using the Aversion Overlord incident to let Shadow Artisan Andor step offstage” is a keystone, like the wedge in an arch.

If I die like a hero, what I leave behind has weight, like an epitaph cut in stone.

“Isn’t there any other way?” she asked, like rain asking the roof.

“I get you don’t want disaster at the Hero Academy, a city crowded as a hive. There are other options: the eight-headed drake-serpent of the Phoenix-Cry Mountains, the Demon Realm portal in the Arctic Tundra, Leviathan in the Endless Sea. All fit the knife, but waking the Aversion Overlord is most controllable, lowest cost, and the death count I estimate is least, like choosing the shortest cut through thorns.”

“But… Andor promised…” Her voice trembled like a wet wick.

“A good ending, yes. But every ending takes lives, like harvest takes stalks. Weigh the likely dead against the effect I need from ‘the death of Shadow Artisan Andor,’ and my choice is reasonable, like scales balancing. Any issue? Need me to show you the equations and ledgers, like knots on a cord?”

“Mm…” Her face folded, like paper in a fist.

Even I, blind to faces, could read that she wasn’t happy, like a sky gone leaden.

I set down the knife, swallowed the last lamb chop whole like a stone, and turned to face her.

“Your Highness, how about this. I’ll show you Vega’s reports, all the numbers for the mortal world, like a map in tiny ink. You give me a plan that, in fifteen days, lets Shadow Artisan Andor’s legend land well, and makes the hero’s price feel earned. Can you write it? Can you push a win-win a step forward, like moving a piece on a board?”

I waited about five minutes. Heat rose from her head, bleeding through the air to my face like a stove through winter cloth.

“…No.”

“Fine. I’ll step back again. Say, within six months, to reach ‘gods and demons leave the mortal world, humans choose their fate,’ the Era of Cold Verdure. Start from what we’ve got. I’ll give you detailed data, like seeds and soil. Can you write that plan?”

“No,” she said, small as a falling petal.

“Then no matter. Roll it back to the root. How do we avoid ‘Demon Kings keep invading, dead keep piling up, and the Final Calamity still comes,’ like a storm promised by the horizon? Same deal. I’ll give data. You give me a win-win. No time limit.”

“I can’t!” The words burst like a snapped string.

“Don’t fall apart. You want to understand my ‘correct’? Fine. You want to read my script? Fine. You want a better, brighter future? Fine. All fine. Everything’s negotiable—if you have a better move. Do you?”

“…”

“I’ve put mine on the table like cards.”

“…”

“How many die, and what I get. You can’t refute it. You’ve got no words that bite. So why won’t you accept me, like a locked door to a guest?”

“…”

Gloria kept her head tilted in silence, like a moon turned away.

I poked her smooth forehead, word by word, like taps on a drum: “Be-cause of prej-udice. You stand with humans, so you think only humans are people, only human profit is profit, only human hurt is hurt.”

“That’s what I hate about you lot. You’re not fair, not even-handed, like scales rigged by thumb. So I refuse to stand with those who crown themselves righteous.”

“Villains don’t dress their deeds in excuses, because ‘villain’ explains it all, like a label burned into wood. We have desires. We’re greedy. But at least we don’t lie to ourselves, like mirrors that don’t fog.”

“Judge right and wrong, gain and loss, with fairness. Promises and oaths—don’t twist them yourself, don’t let others break them. That is a villain’s pride, like a blade kept clean.”

“Do you understand, Your Highness?”

“So I’m correct. And you’re not.”

Maybe I pushed too hard, like a hammer on glass.

“…”

Gloria lowered her head into the crook of her arm, flat on the table like a folded crane.

“Uh, Your… Highness?…”

Wetness spread from her sleeve like ink, and soon pooled on the table like a small pond.

She’s… crying?

I don’t know if girls’ tears are sour or sweet, but Gloria’s tears smell like machine oil. I can smell it from half a meter, like fumes off a forge.

Proper name: magitek fluid. It’s the stuff running through high-grade humanoid Constructs, pumped with mana to push out huge force, like steam through pistons. It evaporates, but it isn’t too pricey—

—None of that matters!

What was I even paying attention to!

What do you do when a girl cries, like rain inside a room?

Vega at the door dared to smirk—just you wait, like a cat eyeing cream.

Right, right, a handkerchief now—but the oil output’s a flood. Vega, bring a stack of oil-absorbent sheets, like blotting paper!

I scratched my face, rooted to the spot like a post, not knowing what to do.

I’m desperate too! Who knows how the Sorcerer Emperor’s ‘Soul Component’ black box ticks, like gears in the dark!

“…Uh, it’s been a week. I’m going to see Lady Light Jade to discuss the unsealing. Want to come? If not, you can ask Vega and go anywhere, like a stroll under lanterns…”

“Go!” Gloria whipped around, and a few drops of magitek fluid flicked onto my lapel like black rain.

“I demand understanding!”

Her tone lately has grown stronger, her feelings louder, like a fire stoked. She’s sounding more and more like a real human.